After mentioning fleas in my last post, I felt it only appropriate to share with you my latest discovery: the shining flea beetle (Asphaera lustrans).

I’d never before seen this insect prior to yesterday’s walk.  What a shame, too, as it’s a captivating and striking little one who readily grabbed my attention as I inspected one of the many trees recently planted around White Rock Lake.

Hiding just below a new and growing web built by eastern tent caterpillars (Malacosoma americanum), this gleaming bobble caught my interest simply by being, by clinging to the bark of a sapling without any pomp and circumstance.

Only when I pushed the camera through the young branches and encroached on the beetle’s personal space did it move, and then only to turn around, to face upward, to spin its hardened body from facing the ground to facing the sky.

I could scarcely blame it for such a maneuver, for wanting to feast its eyes on a clear blue sky after indulging its visual senses for so long on the verdant greenery covering our spring landscape.